Pure by Andrew Miller (2011)

In my quest to read the best of historical novels I consulted several "Best of...." lists on the Internet, and this novel about Paris a few years before the Revolution was mentioned on several sites. Frankly, I am puzzled. Pure seems to me to be a very slight book, short on historical information and also short on plot interest. It would seem to have all the ingredients for a corker of a story, because (as the back cover of the book tells you) it includes a graveyard, mummified corpses, chanting priests, rape, suicide, accidental death, friendship, desire, and love. The back cover neglects to mention an attempted murder and a hint of necrophilia. One would think, with all that, it would be impossible to produce an even slightly boring novel, but Miller did it.

The protagonist is Jean-Baptiste Baratte, a young engineer who is hired by the French government in 1785 to demolish the oldest and largest cemetery in Paris, unearthing all the bodies, including many mass graves, and moving the bones to another sanctified location. Being a provincial and a newcomer to Paris, he hires a former colleague and 30 former miners to help him carry out the work. He makes some new friends, who are involved in painting graffiti against the monarchy on walls around the city. He meets a girl. Over the course of a year, he observes or experiences all of the above, and yet the telling of it is as deadpan and unexciting as is this review.

The clearing of the cemetery did happen and dissidents did paint slogans on walls prior to the 1789 Revolution, but these are the only references to the history of the time. Anyone who reads will encounter hits and misses. This is one of my misses. It's not a terrible book, just a slight book.